1 School of Life Science and Biotechnology, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116023, China
2 State Key Laboratory of Microbial Metabolism, School of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China
3 College of Life Sciences, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi’an 710119, China

Studies on anti-complement agents are essential for the development of drugs to treat various diseases caused by excessive or abnormal activation of the complement system. However, studies on microbial-derived anti-complement agents are still very limited. The anti-complement activities of 42 marine-derived actinomycete strains isolated from the sediment samples collected from Xinghai Bay in Dalian were studied using the hemolysis method. In addition, the active fractions of the strain Streptomyces sp. DUT11 were separated by C18 and Sephadex LH-20 column chromatography, and the active compounds with anti-complement activity were identified. Streptomyces strains S187, M5, S088, M8, S063, DUT11 and MD16 showed good anti-complement activities upon being cultured in TSB medium, with the strain DUT11 showing the best anti-complement activity among these strains. When different fermentation media were tested, the highest anti-complement activity of DUT11 was observed in M33 fermentation medium. The anti-complement activity was 56.5% for the extract of supernatant and 60.8% for the extract of mycelia, respectively. Furthermore, three compounds with anti-complement activity were obtained from the active components, which were identified as 3-indolecarboxylic acid (1), p-hydroxy benzoic acid (2) and 2-pyrrolecarboxylic acid (3). These results demonstrated that marine-derived streptomycetes can be employed to produce active compounds with anti-complement activity. This study presents a new alternative for the utilization of marine actinomycetes and provides a basis for the exploration of new anti-complement agents.